>> and i found out the most popular man in s in mississippi and boston. i was curtis and it was a remarkable place. he's just a remarkable guy. >> how many hands there because he has drinks in both hands. >> he's got two drinks. >> did you have simultaneous translation? >> yes, i did. mike said his job of stopping drinking is -- >> go to red wine. >> curtis, we miss you. hottie tottie. >> right now it's time for chuck and he's right here with us. >> fiery, feisty, and fierce. fight in long island last night. governor romney and president obama trade blows. the president showed up for this debate different than the other one. was it enough to stop romney's

momentum? robert gibson how the president tried to put the denver debate downer behind him and reince priebus on romney's road ahead with one debate and less than three weeks to go. and the college student who asked the very first question last night. find out whether either answer from the candidates hit the mark for him and what was it like to get ready for the big night. good morning from new york city. it's 20 days until election day and it's wednesday, october 17th, 2012. this is "the daily rundown" and i'm chuck todd. if you like your debate scrappy, which two candidates don't seem to like and maybe respect each other too much, governor romney and president obama delivered big time. the two candidates debated as if both of their political careers depended on it because well, they do. from the start, it was confrontational, petty, you name it as the two men literally

circled each other like boxers in the ring. >> not true, governor romney. >> by how much did you cut them by? how much did you cut federal license on federal waters? >> governor romney, here's what we did. there were a whole bunch of oil -- >> do you want me to answer a question? i'm happy to answer the question. >> all right. and it is -- mr. president, have you looked at your pension? mr. president, have you looked at your pension? >> you know, i don't look at my pension. it's not as big as yours so it doesn't take that long. >> there's a clear contrast between the civility of the first debate. president obama's advisers promised he would be more assertive and, well, the president delivered. >> what governor romney said just isn't true. very little of what governor romney said just isn't true. he only has to pay 14% on his taxes when a lot of you are paying much higher. governor romney doesn't have a

five-point plan. he has a one-point plan. >> president got a big assist from the questions themselves, posed from the so-called undeciders. some of them helped him microtarget, women, hispanics, check. and those who don't remember the bush years fondly. >> in what new ways do you intend to rectify the inequalities in the workplace, specifically regarding females. >> what do you plan on doing with immigrants without their green card that are currently living here as productive members of the society. >> since both you and president bush are republicans, i fear a return to the policies of those years should you win this election. >> the president seemed to relish the idea on pay equity while governor romney ignored it altogether and talked about

appointing women. >> we fixed that. that's an example of the kind of advocacy that we need. >> we took a concerted effort to go out and find women who had background who could be qualified to become members of our cabinets. i went to women groups and said, can you help us find them and they brought us binders of women. >> awkward for governor romney on several questions one man stumbled and one pounced. the president was asked by a 2008 supporter why he should be elected for the second term. >> what have you done or accomplish to earn my vote? >> we've gone through a four tough years, no doubt about it. the point is, the commitments i've made, i've kept. and those i haven't been able to keep, it's not for lack of trying and we're going to get it done in a second term. >> i think you know better -- i think you know that these last four years haven't been so good,

as the president just described and that you don't feel like you're confident that the next four years are going to be better either. >> meanwhile, romney struggled on how he would be better than george bush. >> we are different people and these are different times and i'll crack down on china. president bush didn't. i'm also going to dramatically expand trade in latin america. >> there are some things where governor romney is different than george bush. george bush didn't propose turning medicare into a voucher. yorge bush embraced comprehensive immigration reform. he didn't call for self-deportation. >> when it comes to romney's differ rengs asians, that might have worked for a crowd of republican primary voters but the quote, i'm going to be more of a free trader, that is not for undecided voters who might feel sour on the bush years. romney had a chance to respond on that note because the moderator felt the pressure to cut short some exchanges that

might have been interesting if they went on because she felt the need to get more questions in. but it meant that the time clock was almost a supporting player. it was visible behind both men as they spoke and led to frequent attempts to override the moderator. >> i will let you, absolutely -- >> let me answer and -- >> you certainly will have lot of time here coming up. we're going to move you along to taxes. >> i'm used to being interrupted. >> the president was more asserted, did his best to hold his own. and then libya happened. the question was an opportunity for romney to put the president in a defensive posture. instead, he blew it. >> there was no demonstration involved. it was a terrorist attack and it

took a long time for that to be told to the american people. i think you need to ask yourself, why didn't we know five days later when the ambassador went on tv to say that this was a demonstration, how could we have not known? >> president obama fired back, staring down his opponent in what look like it may have been a practiced -- something that was practiced during debate prep. >> the day after the attack, governor, i stood in the rose garden and i told the american people and the world that we are going to find out exactly what happened, that this was an act of terror. and the suggestion that anybody in my team, whether it is the secretary of state, our u.n. ambassador, anybody on my team would play politics or mislead when we've lost four of our own, governor, is offensive. >> the moment, as i said, seemed carefully staged and felt like it was rehearsed a bit. when romney tried to challenge the president, he was then the one who ended up appearing rattled. >> i think it's interesting that

the president just said something which is that on the day after the attack he went in the rose garden and said that this was an act of terror. you said in the rose garden the day after the attack that it was an act of terror. it was not a spontaneous demonstration. is that what you're saying? >> please proceed, governor. >> i want to make sure that for the record because it took the president 14 days before he said it was an act of terror. >> get the transcript. >> can you say that a little louder, candy? >> romney never seemed to recover from that touch tone moment in the end. it was romney, not the president, who brought up the 47% in response to the debate's final question. >> what do you believe is the biggest misperception that the american people have about you as a man and a candidate.

>> i think the president's campaign has tried to characterize me as someone who is very different than who i am. i care about 100% of the american people. >> barry, i think a lot of this campaign, maybe over the last four years, has been devoted to this notion that i think government creates jobs, that that's somehow the answer. that's not what i believe. but i also believe that when he said behind closed doors that 47% of the country consider themselves victims who refuse personal responsibility, think about who he was talking about. >> you got the final word of the night there. who won the night? the two snap polls gave the president the win. 37% gave obama the winner, romney 30 and a tie of 33%. in a cnn poll, 46/39. the president stayed 30 minutes after the debate taking pictures with the undecided voters who asked questions. it was a reversal of the first

debate where romney lingered and seemed to enjoy the moment, if you will. romney left undecided voters with 65% margin, somewhat smaller advantage than he had before the debate. but voters picked obama by 13 points when asked who would do more to help the middle class as president. that middle class thing, that's iowa, wisconsin, ohio there when you're talking about the battleground states. how did the ron allen sat down with undecided voters in columbus, ohio. >> the interaction between them was really aggressive. i thought it was a little rude at times. so that's not something that i was fond of. they made an agreement beforehand not to directly argue with each other and they broke that. >> the vice president who sat down for a series of network interviews after the debate shared a different take with nbc news.

>> i thought it was a real moment when they were kind of circling each other. it was like, come on, man, let's level with each other here. >> congressman paul ryan who did a morning show blitz responded to that. >> the idea that he had to go ask for help to find qualified women, there's so many qualified women walking around. >> all he simply meant was he went out of his way to qualify women. >> does governor romney think the president was right to sign the lilly ledbetter act into law? >> it was not an equal pay law. what lilly ledbetter did was open up the statute of limitations for lawsuits. >> the conversations were dominated by libya. ryan tried to explain romney's libya mistake.

>> it was a passing comment in general. it was not a claim that this was a result of the terrorist attack. >> i don't think they should have sent their u.n. ambassador out saying that this was by a spontaneous mob. i don't think he should have mentioned it six times. >> the problem for romney is, it matters less than how he answered it in front of 65 million people. the white house has questions to answer on libya, particularly on the libya lapses, questions that biden tried to address this morning. >> i answered the question in my debate, were the president and i aware of the requests and we were not. secretary clinton has confirmed that never got to us. their strategy seems to be to try to make it appear that the president didn't care, didn't know, or was lying. the fact of the matter is, the president was clear. >> conservative radio host laura

ingraham wrote last night, terrible miss calculation for gop to agree that the final debate would be on foreign policy. whose bright idea was that when this is a jobs economy. hopefully he won't lose ground. that means we'll go out to grinding it out before this election. much more still to come on this post debate edition of "the daily rundown." robert gibbs will be here next. plus, we'll talk to the undecided voter who opened last night's debate and quick became a trending topic on twitter. he's known as jeremy. first, here's a look at president obama and governor romney's schedule.

president obama does ohio today. you, too, can see where he's headed. it's virginia, virginia, virginia. we'll be right back. [ male announcer ] alka-seltzer plus presents the cold truth. i have a cold, and i took nyquil, but i'm still stubbed up. [ male announcer ] truth is, nyquil doesn't unstuff your nose. what? [ male announcer ] it doesn't have a decongestant. no way. [ male announcer ] sorry. alka-seltzer plus fights your worst cold symptoms plus has a fast-acting decongestant to relieve your stuffy nose. thanks. [ male announcer ] you're welcome. that's the cold truth! [ male announcer ] alka-seltzer plus. ♪ oh what a relief it is! [ male announcer ] try new alka-seltzer plus severe allergy to treat allergy symptoms plus sinus congestion and pain.

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now, governor romney was a very successful investor. if somebody came to you, governor, with a plan that said, here, i want to spend 7 or $8 trillion and we're going to pay for it but we can't tell you until maybe after the election how we're going to do it, you wouldn't have taken such a sketchy deal and neither should you, the american people. because the math doesn't added a up. >> well, voters got the answer

to at least one question last night. yes, president obama can still pl throw a rhetorical punch. robert gibbs is senior adviser for the obama campaign. robert, clearly a different president last night versus the first debate. why? >> wheaties? no, i honestly don't know. whatever he ordered for dinner, i want two for florida. he was commanding, energetic, passionate. >> everything he wasn't at the first debate? >> absolutely. and i think he laid out a strong case for what we've done over the past four years to rectify the economic calamity that we inherited. >> you know, that seemed to be if there was a moment, yes, he seemed to change his tone, assertive, much more commanding on stage but did he answer the question of what he's going to

do in the next four years? he seemed to answer the question that he wanted another term but how is that he laid out a second term agenda? i missed it. >> i think in several of the answers to questions. how do we bring more of our jobs that have left this country back into this country, bring them back overseas, deal with tax cuts that ship those jobs overseas as well. build more products here and send them overseas, increasing our ex be ports, increasing our math and science teachers so folks like jeremy have the best education they can possibly get and that we're training kids for these good jobs. increase investment in domestic energy, including not just fossil fuels but renewable energy. i think the president has a whole list of things that will strengthen our economy going forward and, look, i think the president gave a commanding performance. i think he was strong and i think he had a very good night. >> there seems to be plenty of

voters who feel like something needs to change and the question is, do they want a lot to change or a little to change? what's the change that president obama is offering for the second term? >> i think what the president wants to see -- look, this is a more than four-year endeavor to change where we were when barack obama walked into that office january 20th, 2009. >> do you feel like he's offering change for a second term? >> i do. >> did he change any of the things that folks didn't like about -- >> look, i think there are certain things to get done that we have been unable to get congress to focus on. you heard the president discuss immigration reform last night. but, look, we inherited a huge economic calamity and we've spent four years digging out of that hole. we're seeing foreclosures and unemployment at a four-year low. we need to continue to strengthen this economy toward

recovery. governor romney wants to go back to the policies that got us in this mess. basically, an $8 trillion spending deal with $5 trillion tax cuts that benefits the wealthy and not the middle class. >> everyone sat down with some focus group somewhere and i want to play you a clip of what some undecided voters told us about president obama. >> maybe i'm wrong, but i don't think that the president mentioned the word deficit once. he didn't mention balancing the budget. he didn't deny that the deficit will be $20 trillion in four years. >> president obama could not answer -- when he asked the question, have you checked your pension? he didn't answer that. he didn't talk about the deficit. he didn't make mention to how he was going to specifically lower the deficit. >> this has been -- this has popped up. they clearly believe this is a weak point for the president. >> look, what i think the

president talked about is a balanced plan. as he talked about last night, we're going to have to make some tough spending cuts. we're going to need to ask mitt romney and others, including barack obama, to pay their fair share, to pay a little bit more. certainly the president talked about taxpayers and do this in a way to allow us to invest in important things, like education and things that we know will grow our economy. mitt romney wants to start the deficit conversation with $5 trillion new romney tax cut and a defense spending cut that the pentagon doesn't want. higher taxes on the middle class and drastic cut to the important investments. >> i want to shift to libya here. here was the president on libya. >> secretary clinton has done an extraordinary job but she works for me. i'm the president. and i'm always responsible. and that's why nobody is more interested in finding out

exactly what happened than i do. >> all right. this happened september 11th. i was checking my math and my dates. it's now october 17th. last night, october 16th. why did it take more than a month for the president to say, you know what, the buck stops here? a lot of people were saying, where was that response from the president on libya, on the security lapses? >> chuck, as you heard from the president, he's the one who asks, as the president of the united states, asks these diplomats to go into harm's way, to be engaged at a time when we need to be engaged in a dangerous part of the world. nobody feels more responsibility for their safety than he does. >> is he outraged that his ambassador to the united nations went out there with false information? >> let's be clear, susan rice --

>> is he now -- >> i think what is important is that the best information that we had at the time in which we had it. nobody went out there and did anything to mislead this country. >> so are we -- >> and as the president said, republican attempts to politicize this issue have been and continue to be offensive. look, i think it was the strongest answer of the night and it's clear what secretary clinton has outlined with the ambassador is to know what happened -- let me answer this question. because this is important. what happened in benghazi, what happened leading up to benghazi. this is a strong answer for the president and it demonstrated one more time mitt romney's real weakness on foreign policy and we real weakness as commander in chief. >> is he mad about what happened? >> absolutely. we want to know what happened and what happened leading up to it. as you peal back the layers on a

terrorist attack like this, and something like the christmas day bombing, you learn more and more each day. that's what happens in the intelligence community. that's what happens. and as soon as we get information, we'll give it to the american people. >> do you think the economy is okay to come up? >> the president is ready to answer whatever question anybody asks him. >> all right. thank you. hope you had a good coffee. our post debate round up continues next. reince priebus. after romney's misstep last week, next week's debate is more important. who is the only president to win a second term with fewer electoral votes than his first team? tweet us the answer @chucktodd and @dailyrundown. ♪

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i want to make sure that we get that for the record because it took the president 14 days to call it an attack. >> that moment may we heavy on the romney campaign leading into the foreign policy debate in florida. the president was clearly ready for the topic and some wonder why romney wasn't. mr. chairman, that is, even among some of the governor's biggest supporters saw this and the semantics -- you can criticize the president on semantics but the fact is, governor romney blew the moment. >> i don't think so at all. and i don't think it's a matter

of semantics. >> at the moment and he missed the larger point. >> i don't think so. i think the point here to the american people, number one, is this is a tragedy. and everyone agrees with that. and i would say the other thing is, when bad things happen, it doesn't mean that the president, because of that bad event, is a bad leader. that's not the point. the point is that this president has been totally inconsistent, if not dishonest about what happened in libya and chose for whatever reason coming out of the gates saying this on youtube instead of first finding out what the real story is. for the state department to be saying one thing, the white house to be saying another, it's like an episode of the keystone cops with these guys and i think that is what is really driving this narrative. in the united states of america, our president can't seem to get the story straight and it was totally dishonest last night.

>> except you just made the case stronger, arguably, than governor romney did? >> no. i think what the president did last night was stunning, to claim that he called what happened in libya a terrorist attack in the rose garden was stunning. >> you don't believe the acts of terror -- >> come on. let's assume for a second that the president always said that it was a terrorist attack. he said it was a terrorist attack in the rose garden. let's erase everything that jay carney has said for the days leading after that. why, then, would you send in your ambassador to the united nations on "meet the press" a few days later and say, no, it was not a terrorist attack. this was a spontaneous attack spurred on youtube? this is is an easy case to prove that the president and state department didn't know what was going on or purposely being

dishonest in order to get through the next several days of the campaign. >> i want you to respond to -- everybody had a focus group. i want you to take a listen to what undecided voter told us last night. >> romney's answer to the question more seemed like i had women on my board and filled the quota but he didn't actually talk about the women on his board and what they did for him and how that played in the whole picture. >> before the debate, the assumption was this is about suburban women, i'm calling it the holy grail of demographic swing voters here. that answer about binders of women, do you think that's something that governor romney wishes -- a phrase he wish he had back? >> i don't think so. i think he was trying to emphasize that it was a priority for him that women were a big part of his administration. i would also say if you compare the romney administration to the obama administration when it comes to women, mitt romney wins

hands down. mitt romney doesn't have a book written about a hostile work environment for women and his administration as this president does. i mean, if you compare the salaries and the obama white house between women and men, you'll see an incredible disparity. once again, you have the president doing one thing and saying another. just like the debt, deficit, jobs, that's this president's problems. >> let me ask you this bush question and governor romney outlined what he says makes him different from president bush. how important do you think that is? >> i think it's a narrative driven by the democrat and i think you have to answer questions straight on which mitt romney did and there is a difference. look, i don't think paul ryan and mitt romney have ever not said, look, there's plenty of blame to go around for how we got to a place with these incredible deficits and the central focus is that the president didn't follow through

on his promises that he made in that economy. you know, it's funny. robert was out here and said, well, it was a terrible economy. wait a minute, you won based on the economy, the case that you made based on the economy that you ran and in 2008 you said you would fix it and you didn't and that's the problem. the president has no plan, chuck, and he didn't play out a plan last night. what is his plan? >> very quickly, do you wish the third debate were not on foreign policy but on another topic? >> no, i think the president wishes. >> reince priebus, thank you. >> you seem to drink your coffee as well. >> i did. the number of new homes being built hit its highest level in almost four years. becky quick joins me with a quick market rundown. i came to you late. >> it's a good one. i was listening to everything that the past two gentlemen had to say, gibbs and priebus. great stuff. glad to hear all of it.

this is huge. we've been surprised that housing has not come up in any of the three debates to this point. love to see if it comes up in the fourth. we'll see if the economy works into it. this is a great point because it looks like the housing stats were up 15% for the month. blew expectations out of the water. this is key for the economy because most people relate to the economy and not only how whether they have a job, that would be number one, be but number two is the value of their home. that is most family's number one asset in terms of size. up 15%. a lot of people wonder if we've hit a bottom. we sure hope so. i also, in the last hour, lance armstrong, some big news there. nike is going to be cutting him loose. nike came out with this very strong statement. due to the unsur mountable evidence that lance armstrong mislead nike for more than a decade, it's with great sadness

that we have cut our contract from him. the only person they've ever cut loose before was michael vick. >> and they went back. >> when he came back, that's right. >> becky quick, thank you. >> thank you. the first time voter who asked a question last night, he's going to be here in our studio. "the daily rundown will be back in 30 seconds. " will be back in 30 seconds. two undecided voters gathered at hofstra university.

three gave the candidates an opportunity to clarify or defend positions rounding out the questions were lib yeah, gun control, he education. the very first question came from a 20-year-old college student. jeremy, thank you for joining me. >> nice to meet you, too. thank you for having me. >> tell me quickly a little bit about yourself. where do you go to school and what's your major? >> i'm a student at delfi university and i'm studying exercise science and i'm interested in the field of communications. >> you were -- your question last night had to do with essentially the topic, number one, which was, am i going to get a job when i'm out of school? you heard both answer. they looked you in the eye. what did you make of their answers? >> well, mitt romney's first answer, i felt like he was staring into my soul, right

through me when he was answering the question. i felt like he offered me a job five minutes into the debate. i felt like his answer was sincere and when the president came up, he started out by saying my future is bright. i felt like they both were very sincere. they talked very well, eloquently and i think they both gave very good answers. >> you walked into this, take me behind the scenes yesterday. so did you, for instance -- when did you find out that you were going to ask a question, let alone the first question? >> well, i didn't find out i was going to ask a question until candy called on me so -- >> right there live? she did not give you a heads up that you were going to be first? >> during the rehearsal i was trying to ask her, if i'm going to ask a question, let me know. >> i imagine you were a little bit nervous. >> i had a feeling because i was the first person to get the card back with the question and i saw the question that they gave me and i said, i'm probably going to have to ask this at some point. >> you saw the question that

they gave you. explain. >> the card that i wrote -- >> you submitted four questions? >> i see. >> and the question they gave me back -- >> of the four thaw submitted you thought -- >> yes. >> were you excited or nervous? >> at first, the people from the debate -- other people from the debate were saying, you're going to ask the first question. and i said, i don't even know if i'm going to ask it. so i was a little nervous. because we had a lot of down time. the rehearsal ended at 5:00 and from 5:00 to 7:45 i had plenty of time to think, don't mess up, don't embarrass your family. >> i don't think you embarrassed your family at all. you sounded like an undecided voter. are you still undecided? >> i think i made a decision. >> do you want to share it with us or not yet? >> i don't know. i think it should wait until election day. >> okay. fair enough. after the debate, did you get a

chance to interact with the two candidates? >> yes, i was talking with mitt romney and president barack obama. i spoke with mitt romney briefly and said thank you for the question. i asked him if he was going to give me that job in two years. he said maybe. and i was speaking with president obama, i asked him how the chicago bulls are going to do, because they lost their mvp and he said that i could not beat him in one on one but i disagree with that. >> jeremy, thank you for coming in today. >> thank you. >> good luck with finishing school. >> thank you very much. >> all right. our political panel will be here next. we're going to go to the final four battleground states should flo-va not go to one candidate. the soup of the day is a vegetable of barley soup. we'll be right back. my insurance rates are probably gonna double.

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developing now, you're looking at live pictures of air force one. it's getting ready to take off on a post debate swing state. he's heading first to iowa and then later in the day to ohio which, of course, brings us to less than 500 hours and only one debate left before the election. how about that? 500 hours. president obama heads to the midwest to campaign in two battleground states today, ohio and iowa. obama has 237 electoral votes, romney at 191. let's take a look at the critical states of flo-va. we saw romney narrowing the president's lead to six in ohio, pulling ahead of the president in virginia, basically pulling even, if you will, in the sunshine state with a one-point lead. the point is, let's split up

flova. when you talk about florida, ohio, and virginia all the time, let's give the president of ohio, assume its lead and give romney virginia and florida. because this is where the map gets more interesting and intriguing. i'm going to bring my panel in to talk about this. let's give romney his north carolina and the president leading in new hampshire. and this may be where the battleground map is two weeks from now and we could be looking at this final four. wisconsin, iowa, colorado, and nevada. what's interesting here, you take the two western states and if the president wins both of them, he gets over the top, he gets there but if you give -- if you give -- he only needs two of those four. romney, meanwhile, he needs three of the four. so he would need colorado, ohio, and nevada. that would give him 269 and the

point is, we could be for republicans who win nevada. we'll see. we could be in the final four where romney is in the position of having to win three of those four where obama only has to win two of those four. speaking of those two, wisconsin and iowa, we've got poll numbers coming out. nancy gibbs, bob herber, and maggie, political reporter for politico. i think we're all going to be map crazy in three or four day. maggie, how will this race look two days from now in the polls? >> i think that most likely president obama did not undo everything that happened in the last race. i don't think he doesn't know if he can redisqualify romney. i don't think obama did that last night but obama did

reassure his base. he showed up for people undecided and questioning whether how committed he is, i think they may have moved back to him. i think the obama campaign knows they have very good lines but you raised a point with robert gibbs it was not very forward looking. >> he answered one question, that he wants the second term which he didn't seem to show in that first debate what is he going to do in a second term. >> neither have focused with the kind of specificity that the electorate wants on jobs which really remains the most important issue. you know, it was appropriate for jeremy -- >> but it's more about finding a job. what is america going to look like? what are we making? >> that is right. which is why you have so many of these middle class voters worried about what is happening with their kids. they have done okay in the recession and its aftermath but

they don't know what is going to happen with their children, including the ones that have graduated from college. >> nancy, what did you think of the tone? >> i was astonished at the aggressiveness and visceral almost hostility and usually town hall debates you are meant to -- they are supposed to be mr. nice guy. there were times where it was almost uncomfortable to watch, the hostility. you sort of wish that candy had a fire hose to separate the two. >> neither one of them felt -- it's funny. they didn't -- maggie, i don't -- this is going to sound harsh. they didn't use the town hall folks to sort of express empathy, sort of make connections with any of the questioners. they were just sort of facilitators to their message. >> i thought romney came the closer with romney. >> and it seemed to have an

effect with jeremy. >> i think obama started off sort of slow and took a while to find his footing. he seemed a little nervous at first but there was a moment where he realized he was getting under romney's skin. >> romney is not at his best when he let's somebody get under his skin and the president seemed to do that last night. >> the other thing is, we always go back to bill clinton. bill clinton knows how to behave in the performances and town hall is great for him but not just town hall. bill clinton is good on his feet and i think both of these candidates that we have now are guys that are very thoughtful, very smart, but they have to be prepared. >> they have to practice to be good on their feet. >> yes, exactly. >> let me sneak a break in here. the trivia that we asked, who is the only president to win a second term with fewer electoral votes than his first term? nancy, did you have the answer? >> it's got to be a ways back. >> the answer is woodrow wilson.

he won 435 electoral votes because the republican party was split in two and only got 277 in the 1916 election. every other president to win re-election has actually done it by expanding their map, the one. he won his second election by more electoral votes than the first. but his numbers fell in his third and fourth rel-electionre. we'll be back. [ male announcer ] when this hotel added aflac to provide a better benefits package... oahhh! [ male announcer ] it made a big splash with the employees. [ duck yelling ] [ male announcer ] find out more at... [ duck ] aflac! [ male announcer ] ...forbusiness.com. ♪ ha ha!

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let's bring back our panel. nancy, the map. florida, ohio, virginia are the three most important. i think ohio is a check mate state. if romney wins ohio, he wins.

neither one of them still gets to 270. they get a path. i showed you the final fourth. >> we're having flashbacks too. election ties. >> the 269 deal, if we have to explain this to the country. >> it's very difficult to explain. a nation divided. the nation knows it's divided. >> but then we can't come up with results? >> it's a nightmare situation. i think the democrats have set up for the fire wall. >> he can lose ohio and still win this election. it's not easy, but he can. >> obama did better in ohio than any democrat in 2008 than any democrat in years. but iowa, colorado, nevada. it isn't easy, but it is there even if obama holds. >> al gore pulled out of iowa

and everybody said it was over. he almost got it. there are other paths here. colorado feels as if you can see how romney wins it. iowa is the one they have to figure out how to turn. >> the past for both of these guys, it's ununbelievable election. you've been emphasizing a point that is important. you've been talking about enthusiasm. when you have an election that was as close as this one appears to be, you really have to get your base out. and so i know independent voters are always important, but i think this is going to be a base election. i think romney at the moment still has an sang. >> i was just going to say he had it before the debate. imagine where it is today. all right. shameless plugs, i hope i prepared you. nancy, what do you got? >> time is cosponsoring a higher education summit this week. how are we going to fix the problem of access to college.

>> it's fascinating when bill gates gets on it. >> there's a new book called "america the impossible" by a fellow. italy's had a vision for the country that neither of these candidates have been willing to do. >> send the book to both of them. they can download it. >> i'm shameless plugging for the home team. read politico's kovrnl. >> that's it for this edition of "daily rundown." we're going to look at what happens in the case of an electoral vote tie. the legal implications, it really could happen. it doesn't take much on this map to make that happen. coming up next on msnbc, chris jansing. bye-bye. taking a look at your business travel forecast.

severe weather possible in areas of arkansas, mississippi, and tennessee. chicago, kansas city, more scattered showers and storms possible this afternoon. the east coast looks just fine. the west coast also. all the stormy weather in the northern plains. have a great day.

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